In general, Mexico is a place that has lots of celebrations. Saying that, I have seven farewell parties to go to. Everyone I go to gets a little bit harder.

Tomorrow is the first day of my last full week of work at La Buena Tierra. Exams are over, and now we're just learning "Hello Goodbye" by the Beatles (pronounced Beet-less in Mexico) for our final assembly. I won't say that my students are all speaking English fluently now, but they at least know that I truly care about them and they can say "Good morning". My kids are asking me if I'll be teaching English to them next year. It's not fun to say no.

I had to decide in May if I was going to continue to build relationships here for my last weeks, or if I would take a step back, which I'm so accustomed to doing, in order to not feel the sting of saying goodbye. I think I made the right decision when I told myself that I would keep on doing what I love the most- getting to know my fellows.

Sometimes you accomplish and learn things that weren't part of the plan at all. As of late, I've had quite a few conversations with people here who said that we were some of the first "Gringos" to take the time to spend and talk with them. Often time US citizens have a bad reputation for being rude tourists in Mexico, or worse, rude hosts in the US. At the very least there's a handful of Mexicans who don't have a negative stereotype of US citizens anymore.

I'm not gunna lie, sometimes I think "man, I'm gunna have a drier and BBQ sauce in just a few weeks", and that makes me happy. But, most of the time of think of the fact that we're leaving Cuernavaca. I can only hope that things keep getting better for everyone here.

Right now, I have to go pack my back pack full of books I need to organize at school tomorrow. It's my planning day, but I have nothing to plan. Next thing on my to do list is to print out photos for all of my friends and fellow teachers here so that I can leave a memory of this year. What a good year it's been.What Comes Next?

I'll be appreciating these last 20 days in Mexico by spending time with the many friends I've made here including the other YAGM. I think this is my last blog from Mexico, though I might write something when I get back to Florida and settled.

I'll be seeing Miami Airport on July 12th. Then off to the Keys for a few days of relaxation aka fishing. The road doesn't stop there, as I'll be happily returning to my post at Grace Lutheran to go on a service trip with the youth to the Blueridge Mountains, North Carolina. And just to make my life a little more interesting, I decided to work at Sturge's Bike rally in South Dakota for two weeks in August with a fellow YAGM.

Well, here's my despedida to you all. Thank you to everyone for following me on my journey this year. I hope you might have learned a couple of the things I was able to.